My face flushed red as I realized what Sophie said made perfect sense. “Fine,” I muttered as we walked out the door and headed back to the vet’s office.
We decided to look at the phone while we were still at work; no one else was here, and we didn’t want to wait the five-minute drive until we got back home. I flipped the phone open and pressed the button to read the texts.
Sophie and I huddled over the screen. There were texts from four other phone numbers, all with a 415 area code. None of the phone numbers had been saved as contacts, so there were no names attached to the numbers. I opened the uppermost message and read. Jeremy’s phone hadn’t replied to any of the texts, which were exclusively threats.
You’re going to die for this.
What the hell, man? We were supposed to be in this together?
I guess millions of bucks just wasn’t enough for you?
Where the hell are you, Jeremy?
Jeremy, call me. Claire says you’ve run off with the loot.
Sophie and I looked at each other and both raised our eyebrows as I opened up the second set of texts. Again, whoever was texting Jeremy Wallace didn’t get any replies.
You better not have taken that secret to your grave.
Where is it? Listen, text me back. We can make a deal. Just you and me, ok?
Jack better be kidding, but the guy isn’t exactly a barrel of laughs. Did you really steal the diamond? We will find you. And you’d better hope it’s one of the others that finds you first.
This time, when I read the texts, my mouth dropped open. I looked at Sophie.
“Do you think this means what I think it means?” Sophie asked, and I nodded.
“Yeah. I think Jeremy Wallace was one of the people that stole the Helena Diamond.”
9
“You know, what you’ve discovered is so frigging unbelievable I can’t even be mad at you guys for breaking into a police sealed hotel room.”
“So that’s the line, is it?” I replied. “We just have to find proof that the murder victim was part of a gang of thieves that stole a multi-million-dollar diamond, and then we’re free to commit as many felonies as we want?”
“Shut up, Angie,” Sophie said. “She’s actually not nagging us for going out and doing something for once, just leave it alone.”
“Good point,” I replied, and waited for Charlotte to continue.
“I actually think you’re both correct. I think they did steal the diamond. After all, 415 is a San Francisco area code.”
“Who even knows that sort of thing?” Sophie muttered quietly, and I let out a giggle while Charlotte glared at her.
“So what do we know about the thieves then?”
“Well, there were five of them,” I said. “Jeremy and the four people who sent him texts.”
“Also, he was working alone in stealing the diamond from the thieves. All four of the people sent him threats about what they’d do to him if he didn’t give them back the diamond.”
“The two men who also broke into the hotel room—Jack and Andrew—they were almost certainly two of the thieves. And the other two were mentioned by name. Keith and Claire.”
“Good,” Charlotte said. “That’s a lot of information to start off with.”
“Plus I bet you that answers the question of where Jeremy Wallace went in the middle of the night the day before he was killed,” I continued. “He probably went and hid the diamond somewhere, since it seems like none of the others have it, and if the police had found it when they initially searched his room they would have announced it for sure.”
“So that means that hidden somewhere in Willow Bay is a stolen diamond worth tens of millions of dollars,” Sophie said, letting out a low whistle. The three of us looked at each other. This was serious.
“Obviously we have to go give Chief Gary the cell phone,” Charlotte said.
“Uh, absolutely not,” I replied.
“Why not? It has evidence that Jeremy Wallace was involved in the diamond theft, and gives a ton of motives for his murder.”
“And in doing so, Sophie and I have to admit that we committed a felony. I want justice for Jeremy Wallace, but I don’t want to go to jail over it.”
“Well maybe you should think about that before committing crimes,” Charlotte shot back.
“Hey, if I didn’t do this, then we wouldn’t know Jeremy Wallace was one of the diamond thieves anyway.”
“Angie’s right,” Sophie said. “We can’t go to Chief Gary. We can’t admit we were in that hotel room. Besides, he thinks it was a bear attack anyway.”
“And he might change his mind if he knew that there were four people out there with a perfect motive to kill someone,” Charlotte argued. I would never admit it, but she had a point.
“We have to find a different way to let Chief Gary know what happened,” I said.
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not exactly helpful.”
“I’ve only had like, thirty seconds to think of a solution. I don’t see you coming up with anything, either.”
“I have come up with a solution. Tell Chief Gary what you did. He’s not going to throw you in jail.”
“You don’t know that. And I’m not admitting to him that I committed a crime. Not a chance. Give me like, at least a few hours to come up with something.”
“Fine,” Charlotte said.
I texted Jason to see if he wanted to grab some dinner. He texted back that he was, so I left Sophie and Charlotte and made my way to the Ship’s Anchor, the local pub in Willow Bay. The music there was loud enough, and the booths private enough, that I could tell Jason everything I’d learned without fear of being overheard by anyone.
Rather than drive down, I decided to walk to the pub to give myself a little bit of time to gather my thoughts and think about everything I’d learned today. Even though the sky was overcast, it didn’t look like it was going to rain, but I grabbed an umbrella just in case. I could always get Jason to drive me home if the weather changed over dinner.
As I made my way down the streets of Willow Bay, the sky darkening just enough to cause the streetlights to turn on automatically as I walked beneath them, I considered everything Sophie and I had discovered that afternoon.
Jason Wallace had been a diamond thief. There were four others in the group with him. He stole the diamond, hid it somewhere, then was killed. Presumably all four of the others were in Willow Bay.
But there were questions. Most pressingly: why did the killer murder Wallace without finding the location of the diamond? If Jason Wallace had died without telling them the diamond’s location, then they had no way of finding it. He couldn’t have told the killer; the others were still in Willow Bay looking for the stone. Unless one of them already had it in their possession and was only pretending to still be looking. That didn’t make any sense either though; whoever had the diamond would probably leave straight away to avoid detection.
This flurry of thoughts sped through my brain as I headed down Main Street toward the pub. Suddenly, I heard a noise to my left. I looked over and saw a black and an orange cat darting away from me and behind Betty’s Café at top speed.
“Bee? Buster?” I asked, confused. The cats certainly looked like mine. And now that I thought about it, when we’d gotten home I hadn’t seen Bee at all. The cats were gone so fast, a part of me wondered if my mind was just playing tricks on me. It certainly looked like Bee, but Bee wasn’t the kind of cat to wander off and get into trouble on her own. She was just far too apathetic for that.
I shook my head. It must have been a couple of other cats. The fact that they were black and orange was just a coincidence; I must have made myself think it was them because of the colors.